When I first began planning the Magnolia, I had a vision of it as a Civil War era theater. I think the balconies and wide bay areas were what put that idea into my head and I was pretty certain that was going to be my plan.

Oh, how these houses change our minds for us! Once the Magnolia arrived and I started putting it into dry fit, it took on a whole new concept. I played with the idea of it being an Aspen-type ski lodge and to be honest, if I build another one, that's probably the direction it will take. But this house firmly told me that it wanted to be the ultra modern home of a Silicon Valley bachelor. "But", I argued, "You're of a more victorian or traditional styling. How are we going to give you a modern look?" The Magnolia replied, "Just look at these wide open rooms and the French doors opening out to balconies. If you put in a couple of skylights in the roof, paint me in light, modern colors, give me some interesting floor treatments, build in an entertainment center and give me a cantilevered floating staircase, I'll be very modern and chic."

I've never denied a house what it wanted and this didn't seem the time to start, so the Magnolia began its journey in a conversion to a modern SoCal house. During the planning stages, I put the house into dry fit and used a pencil to mark out where the skylights would go and spent a lot of time with wood scraps designing a floating staircase that would work with the floorplan. Once those decisions were made, the house came back apart and the building started.

My building style is to decorate as I build, so the walls, floors and windows are finished before I even assemble the shell. I start with the floors. The first floor is a hardwood easily accomplished by staining the kit floor with Honey Pine stain. I have a fetish for high gloss on floors so after the stain dries, it gets a series of poly varnish/sand/varnish/sand/varnish. It takes about three days to complete the process, but the time and effort are well worth it for the end result of deep glossy floors. In the miniature scale, that deep shine gives a lot of realism.

The second floor is a combination of vinyl tile in the computer room and a parquet floor in the bedroom. While the house was in dry fit, I used a pencil to draw a line on either side of the dividing wall between the two rooms so I knew where to leave a slight gap between the vinyl and parquet. That little gap ensures that the wall would set down flush with the floor and not cause gaps when the roof went on.

I gave the floor a coat of stain to seal the wood, then flipped it over and put on the ceiling paper.

When the floor is stained on the top side, it will reduce the chance of the wood warping from the moisture in the wallpaper glue on the other side. After I had the wallpaper on. I covered it with waxed paper and weighted it with books to ensure it would dry flat.

After the glue had dried, I began tiling the floors. Using the pencil marks as guidelines, I installed the vinyl tiles in the computer room first. The tiles are from the Greenleaf store and are not only easy to work with, but affordable too. They're a peel and stick tile in one inch squares. I used just a drop of glue on the bottom of each tile for a little more security.

After I had the tiles in place, I moved on to the bedroom. For this room, I used the Greenleaf birch tiles. They're also one inch square and very easy to work with. They can be cut to any size or shape using an EZ cutter, or even a sharp pair of scissors. I've used these tiles for complex and ornate parquet floors, but for this room, I did a simple alternating grain pattern and gave it a coat of honey pine stain after the glue had dried.

In this picture, you can see where the gap between the rooms is located for the wall. I used a skinny stick to make the threshold between the two rooms. I'll be using more skinny sticks later on for thresholds for both French doors as well as for framing around the stairwell.

I waited overnight for the glue to completely cure and then used poly varnish on both the wood and the vinyl tiles. The vinyl takes poly varnish surprisingly well and gives a high gloss to the tile floors.